


Stand By You

by mortalitasi



Series: a crown of poppies [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen, General, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 03:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3103637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the Inquisitor learns, little by little, to rely on others. Difficult, but doable. Aren't most things?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stand By You

**Author's Note:**

> this is a beast that i won't even endeavor to proofread tonight so please excuse stupid typos and stupider word repetitions. this goddamn oneshot just kept growing!! pls keep in mind that the events in the oneshot aren't necessarily linear unless they absolutely seem so. WHOO

A BURDEN SHARED  
IS A BURDEN HALVED.

 

…

 

 

 

The door swinging shut is what makes Cullen look up from his work on the war table.

Even inside the Chantry, the iciness that defines the Frostbacks is very prominent. Stand far away enough from the hearth, or the braziers, and you will know it—the chill bites deep and it bites hard, saps your strength, turns your will to ashes, and drains energy like none other. It's a disadvantage that's cost many soldiers their lives before. He hopes this won't be the case for any of his recruits here, though he knows it's a foolhardy wish. Fighting in the Frostbacks never has been easy, and it never will be. He can only pray they will be ready when the day comes.

Too much thought for one moment. He blinks at who's just walked in. It's the Inquisitor, freckled cheeks rosy from the cold outside, flyaway strands of her ginger-colored hair loose from the bun at the back of her head. When he sees her so near to things like doorjambs or statues, he realizes—for the hundredth time—just how small she is. She must be at least two and a half heads shorter him. Not that he's stared at her long enough to figure that out. Absolutely not. She brushes at her hair with one gloved hand, and then wipes the melting snow from her coat's shoulders.

“Commander,” she says, fixing her frighteningly green eyes on him. “Do you know where Cassandra is?”

He has to think about his response for a moment. “She... must have gone to the smithy. I recall her saying something about iron shipments... and _talks_.”

The Inquisitor laughs lightly. He has no idea how she can sound so cheery when she's in the situation she's in. The pressure, the demands, the unknown consequences—he finds it amazing she can manage it at all.

“Yes,” she replies. “That does sound like her. Are you busy?”

The question takes him off-guard. “No, not especially. Do you have need of me?”

She scratches as her nape and makes a face, not unlike the reaction you'd have to tasting sour fruit. “I was wondering if you had time to go over some of the invoices with me. I'm afraid the scale of these numbers isn't _exactly_ what I'm used to, ah... dealing with. The clan's hunters didn't number in the _hundreds_.”

“It can be daunting,” he agrees, sitting up straight. “The Order's numbers weren't great in Ferelden, but Kirkwall—the Gallows were... large, to say the least. I will try to help as best I can.”

She grins at him, dimples and all, and his stomach does an odd lolloping flip-flop. “Thanks.”

“It's no trouble,” Cullen says, grateful to the Maker that he didn't stutter. That seems to be a common occurrence lately.

“I should go to Josephine's office to fetch the papers,” the Inquisitor says. “So many _papers_! I'm going to drown in parchment. I suppose I shouldn't complain. She does the brunt of it. Still, I—”

It takes him a few seconds to realize what happens next. The Inquisitor crumples, falling, banging her elbow on the table on the way down. Her greaves clank on the stone floor as she lets the momentum carry her, and then Cullen is leaping from his seat, circling the chairs and the war table to come to her side, manners absolutely forgotten. She's bowed over, the feathery ends of her fringe almost skimming the ground, and her expression is full of agony, drawn tight, sharp. It unsettles him. He crouches near her, unsure whether to touch her or not, panic boiling in his gut.

“Inquisitor—?”

Then he hears it. It's a sibilant hum, but a clear note at the same time—the sound that reminds him of a kettle left too long on the fire, whistling with steam and pressure—it's something like the song of lyrium, though higher, frenzied, uncontrolled. It's terrifying.

“Stay away,” she gets out between gritted teeth. She's struggling to hold... what, exactly? His eyes travel lower, to her hands. She has the right clamped over the wrist of the left, but it may as well be doing nothing to contain the spasmodic convulsions that are wracking her arm. Her fingers are twisting, as though they have a life of their own, knuckles straining against the skin, and the thing in the center of her palm is _bubbling_ , venom-green, unnatural and alien.

He has no idea what to do. All he knows is that he does not like seeing her like this. “Should I fetch Solas?”

“Please don't,” the Inquisitor says, jaw clenching. “I'd rather not be—looked at and prodded right now. I may just knock him flat.”

She could do it, too, with ease, if the greatswords he's seen her carry around are any indication of her strength.

“I'll be okay,” she says dismissively. Were she not on her knees, he'd believe her. It makes him wonder what else she conceals. “It'll go away eventually.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Lavellan snaps with vehemence that surprises him, and then sighs, though she is obviously still in discomfort. “That was foolish. I shouldn't take it out on you. This thing just hurts and it makes me cranky. I'm sorry.”

“You needn't apologize,” he murmurs. “Come. Can you stand?”

She sighs, again, and clenches her fist shut despite the tremors. “Let's find out.”

“Allow me,” Cullen says and he offers a hand. She looks at it as if it's a dangerous animal instead of... well, a hand. Her brows climb upward. She blinks, and he notices that her lashes are just a few shades darker than her hair—and they're thick, long, further pronounced from the side.

“You don't have to,” she says. Her stance becomes guarded, and she tries to use the table as support.“You have stuff to do.”

“It can wait,” he informs her, not dropping his hand.

She stares for a moment longer before sliding her fingers over his, gripping gently at his palm, without the strength he'd been expecting. Her skin is warm, and he can feel it even though the leather of his gloves. She hides the other hand behind her back and lets him pull her up. There's a split second where she sways, but his grip keeps her steady. The wiry power coiled in her muscles is like a tightly-wound spring—it's evident through the little details like the shape of her arms under her sleeves and the firm stance with which she comports herself. The tails of her coat flutter about her legs as she puts her full weight on her feet.

“Are you alright?”

The question's softer than he predicted it'd be, and he's not sure whether that's good or bad. Probably bad.

She squeezes his hand in acquiescence. It makes that flip-flop from earlier return, and a pleasant, low burn spreads through his veins.

“If I'm not, I will be in a few minutes,” the Inquisitor remarks. That's her way of answering a query—that is, not answering it at all. She releases her hold on him, slipping away, and he catches sight of her stuffing her left hand in her pocket. “Commander?”

He glances up, removing his attention from the pocket, to see she's looking at him.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. The simple honesty of that admission is somehow very sad, and he does not know why.

Cullen presses a fist over his heart in a salute, an assurance—a promise.

“Should you need anything, I will be here.”

 

 

…

 

 

_She sniffs and wipes at her face with a torn sleeve, scowling when Master Eranthil presses down on the cut at her temple with a square of linen soaked in elfroot water._

“ _This is the fifth fight this week,” Eranthil says, appraising her apprentice with a pair of critical blue eyes. “What happened this time, exactly?”_

“ _Mella said I wasn't a_ real _Dalish,” Nehn scoffs. “And I told her to knock it off. Then she pushed me into the brook. So I hit her.”_

 _Eranthil exhales in exasperation. “You're almost into your sixteenth autumn, da'len. You can't just_ hit _anyone for being unkind to you.”_  

_Nehn's lips pull into a snarl. “Why not?”_

“ _Because it makes you no better than they are,” the older elf says, and then turns to rinse the cloth and soak it again. The short stool Nehn is sitting on makes it easier for Eranthil to reach the cuts and scrapes she's got all over her face. “It also gives them leverage to use later, against you. You shouldn't bestow that upon anyone.”_

“ _You're telling me to hit them without my fists,” Nehn clarifies, but she has to shut her eyes when Eranthil slaps the linen square on the biggest scratch on her forehead._

“ _Precisely.”_

_She spits out a small spout of elfroot water. “But that's not nearly as fun.”_

“ _You'll just have to deal with it,” Eranthil insists before wiping the dried blood from Nehn's chin. “In addition, none of the others hit as hard as_ you _. It's rather unfair, don't you think?”_

“ _That's the whole point,” Nehn mumbles, and that makes Eranthil poke at a purpling bruise near her nose. “_ Ow _!”_

“ _Be still.”_

_Nehn knocks the caring hands away and swivels in her seat, so that she's facing in a different direction, looking out at the rolling plains beyond the camp.“It's not my fault they can't handle themselves in a fight! I'm always carrying the water and mucking the halla pen and lifting things for everyone, and no one cares. No one cares, and I'm stupid, and I punch people because they don't listen to what I say. Ever.”_

_The craftsmaster pauses at that. She leaves the cloth in the bowl of herb-treated water and walks around the stump Nehn is using as a seat until she can finally see Nehn's face again. Lavellan is a pretty girl, with her wild red hair and confident shoulders. She walks with a certainty few her age possess. Eranthil knows that she's smarter than she lets anyone else believe, and perhaps that is why she is having such a difficult time with her peers—it is not easy being the odd one out of the group. Eranthil is familiar with the concept. Much of her earlier life was like this, short of all the... scuffles Nehn seems bent on getting herself into._

“ _Nehn,” Eranthil says, but all that does is make Nehn prop her chin up on her palms and furrow her brow. She doesn't look at her master, instead fixating on the swaying stalks of wheat and weeds in the fields ahead. “Da'len.”_

“What _?” Nehn says with no shortage of grouchiness. “Are you going to advise me on how to be the better person one more time?”_

_Eranthil smiles, just a little. “No. I only wanted to note that I used to be very similar to you. You're not stupid, and I, at least, care very much about you. I am certain your mother does as well, even if you have your differences.”_

_Nehn snorts. “That's one way to put it.”_

“ _She does her best.”_

“ _I wish Father were here,” is Nehn's only answer. The anger in her gaze leaves, bit by bit, and all that's left is an unsettling melancholy that Eranthil does not like seeing on someone barely an adolescent. Eranthil reaches out and pats at the crown of her head, light and welcoming._

“ _I know it's hard.”_

_Nehn glances at her master out of the corner of her eye. “That sounds an awful lot like what the farmgirl said to the plow-boy in the barn.”_

_Eranthil blinks twice, methodically, and then slaps Nehn in a single resolute movement across the back of the skull. She yelps in pain and scrambles to cover the afflicted area._

“ _Shit! Why do you_ always _do that?”_

“ _Keep talking this foully and I shall do it again.”_

“ _Don't!”_

 

 

…

 

 

For the entire ten seconds she spends closing a rift, she is invisible.

The first few times were shaky. She'd lift her hand, watch the Mark react to the tear, and then would come the terror—even now, pieces of her slip away, infinitesimal fragments that shouldn't bother her at all, but during each moment, she forgets everything; the names of all things, colors, tastes, smells, her _own_ name, the words for stepping and blinking and sleeping. The pull of the Fade erases them, cleanly, as though they'd never been, and for some instants, the whole world just _is._ No speech. No sound. No pointlessness. No self.

There is, however, meaning. The shattered mysteries of what's been lost vaguely make sense, somewhat, and there are answers, clamoring under the surface, pushing up, screaming to be listened to, truths that haven't seen fruition or ridden and fallen from the lips of men in Ages—it becomes too much, and when she thinks she's going to burst from it, _with_ it, it starts to drain, until what remains are the dregs of herself, common, dry, and withered. Lesser.

She'd be sadder about it if she could forget the dangers that these ass-cracks in the sky come with. She leans back in her chair, squinting when the sunlight makes contact with her face. Skyhold is replete with it. Sunlight, that is.

For some reason, the rifts are all she can focus on. She should be working, but her mind wanders. Every time she gets her train of thought back, it gets off track and wanders and then she can't seem to remember what she wanted to do in the first place. This is frustrating. Usually, her patience is _fine_ , though she has to concede she's not the calmest of people, but it doesn't get in the way of her concentration. Now, she's drifting. She'd thought the hallucinations and the weirdness would have been gone by now. She hadn't even been down that pit for long. _Stupid_ girl, she thinks, knocking herself on the side of the head. She should have been watching where she was going—but no, she tripped, and she had to drop, and she had to create trouble for everyone.

The red lyrium in the mines of Sahrnia had been warm, feverish, full of the heat that comes off of a sick person. Just being near it had made her ill. And there was the song, pounding, echoing, inescapable. Dorian had put up a protective barrier around them while Cassandra had leaned over the pit to pull her out. Apparently, they'd arrived late.

She wonders whether this—the unsteadiness, the inability to commit to a task, the _phantoms—_ will persist. If this is going to be permanent, she doesn't look forward to it. Her stomach gurgles, so she decides to forfeit the papers for a bit and reaches for an apple she'd set aside earlier, lying by the inkwell. She likes the green ones best. They're crunchy and tart and not too sweet, and she goes through them like halla go through hay. Nehn rubs the apple on her sleeve to get rid of any lingering dust before biting into it. It's a welcome distraction from the scattered mess in her brain.

It takes exactly a heartbeat for her to realize something's wrong. Her tongue tastes like cold and blood, and she can feel shards of—what, shards of what?—poking at her gums and the soft inside of her mouth, tearing it to pieces. Bile rises in her throat, and she spits, listening to the clink of glass as it lands on the wood of the desk. She looks at the thing in her hand, and she screams through the slivers of barbing fire between her teeth. It's a flask, broken at the edge where she—where she _chewed_ at it.

She can't swallow. She'll die if she does. Nehn throws the flask away with all her strength, and it smashes against the wall, but she's too occupied with scooping anything she can get to out of her mouth. She shuts her eyes when it's done, spitting out the blood welling behind her lips, and whimpers before she can help herself. The rhythm of the pulse in her throat is fast, sped by fear, and nothing can calm it.

She's in the middle of trying to gather her courage to look at what's on her desk when there's a hiss by her left ear. She startles, jerking to the side, and it doesn't go away—cool breath washes over her cheek, and then laughter. She hears Frida laughing, laughing. She leaps up but it's miscalculated. Her ankle tangles in the foot of the chair and she lands heavily, spine hitting the flagstones with unforgiving force.

“Leave me alone!” she shrieks as the giggles fade, and a chunk of apple jammed over her molar comes loose.

_What?_

Nehn stares at her hands, her trembling fingers, shining with saliva, and the mess of masticated apple caught under her nails. She looks to the wall, sees the fruit on the floor, bruised, half-eaten, and then back to the desk. Blood—nowhere. Her lungs turn papery, shrink with shock. Did she imagine—?

She doesn't hear Josephine until the advisor has finished coming up the last of the stairs. Lady Montilyet is backed by three guards, each of them stern-faced and alert.

“Inquisitor, we heard you—Maker...”

She must appear colossally daft, sitting in the middle of the floor, her chair toppled, papers strewn about, and she can't bring herself to care. Not much, anyway. She'll have to find a way to convince everyone she's okay later on. Josephine approaches slowly, and Nehn lifts her hands, palm-up.

“Josephine.”

“Yes?”

“What do you see?”

 Josephine doesn't seem to understand. “I—don't really know what you mean, Inquisitor. What do I see?” 

Anxiety and senseless irritation swells in Nehn's chest. “Yes, what do you see? What do you see when you look at my hands? What's _on them_?”

“I—they... they're clean,” Josephine says, unsure.

 In front of every person in the room, the Inquisitor smiles, remembering the shadow of Frida and the ghosts of the past—and begins to weep.

 

 

…

 

 

Cullen comes to her sometime after the ninth bell, when Skyhold is settling and the night is setting in.

Her quarters are dark, only lit by a few candles and a lonely lantern hanging from a post of its own near her bed. She's on her mattress, against the headboard, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wound around them. Nehn is a slip of a woman in armor, but out of it, she's almost a wisp. The ends of her unbound hair brush the small of her back. She looks up for a split second when she notices him, but then she lowers her eyes, ashamed. He balks, just slightly, but his desire to comfort overcomes propriety and he comes to sit near her. He's not confident about how to start—he has to make an attempt.

“Josephine told me about this afternoon,” he says, and she flinches, like she's been struck. “I... don't know what I can offer, in truth, but—I am here.”

“You shouldn't be,” she objects. “I don't want anyone to see me like this. It's pathetic.” She buries her face in her knees, muscles tensing. He brushes the back of a hand across her temple.

“It has nothing to do with what should be. I wanted to.”

She draws in a sharp breath. “I don't deserve this.”

“Of course you don't, you—”

Nehn's head snaps up so quickly that he stops dead. “No, no, you don't get it. I don't deserve _this_. The power, the friends, the luxuries, _you—_ none of it. I'm just an upstart, a mistake, someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, always outside looking in. I'm not—I'm not enough.”

“Look at me,” Cullen says. He smooths the hair out of her eyes and cups her cheeks in his hands. “You _are_ enough. You always have been. We couldn't ask for a better leader. And I... I couldn't ask for more from you. You have already given so much. Tell me what's troubling you, so I can _help_. Let me in.”

At some other time, she would have probably cracked a joke about him sounding dangerously like Cole, or played on innuendo, laughing when he'd go scarlet from brow to toe. Now, she just looks back at him, eyes gleaming, the liquid there amber in the glow of the lantern.

“I don't know how,” she whispers. He touches his forehead to hers—that's becoming a habit. Her fingers curl in the fabric of his tunic's sleeves, crushing the white linen between them.

He thumbs away the tears. “Try. Please.”

“I can't light the rest of the candles,” Nehn confesses. “The dark helps hide them. The things I see. It started happening after going to the Emprise. I tripped into a lyrium pit, blacked out a bit, I didn't think it would _do_ anything, it wasn't for more than a minute. I—I don't know if it's going to stay that way or not. Cullen, I'm so scared.”

He's never heard her say that aloud. He's never _seen_ her like this. He knew, logically, that she couldn't be smiles and surety all the time, but to have it shown to him this starkly...

“How long?”

“This is the fourth week,” she says, voice breaking. “I believed it was getting better, I did, and then—it wasn't. I can't sleep.”

He strokes at her hair, again, hoping it's a solace. “I don't blame you. You've ingested none of it. This is a passing effect.”

“You're not a very good liar,” Nehn says. “I've said that to you before, haven't I?”

“You may have,” he replies, smiling some.

“I need to tell you while I still have the nerve.”

He glances up at her, worried. “Tell me what?”

She doesn't answer the question. “I had a friend. When I was younger. I must have been thirteen when I met her. The clan had gone north, crossing the Minater—there were raids on other clans near Tantervale, you see, and we—we wanted to be removed from that. So we found a village, out in the middle of nowhere, right? And we camped at the edge of the forest. The villagers didn't care. They were more occupied with darkspawn than they were with us.”

“I'm listening,” he reassures when she hesitates.

“Our Keeper's always been interested in human affairs—but she doesn't like them. Humans, that is. Very Dalish. A lot of the clan is like her. So when—one day I went herb-picking, because I was, I don't know, grounded, for something or other—as usual—and I bent down to pull a weed out by the roots and I tripped on her,” Nehn says, blurting the last sentence as though it'd escape from her if she didn't recount it fast enough. “She was just—sleeping there, happy as you please, under the fronds of prophet's laurel and Creators know what else.”

She stops abruptly, hands tensing.

“Who?” he prompts, without force or demand.

“Her name was Frida,” Nehn laughs, “and her head was so sodding heavy that my ankle twisted and I stumbled straight into the nearby stream. Face-first. I thought I was going to drown, for a moment. She helped me crawl back to solid ground. And you know what she said? 'I'm sorry.' That's what. She didn't hit me. She didn't scream. The only human girl I'd ever seen up so close, and she didn't even bat an eyelash at my ears. She just... helped. Without a question.”

“She sounds... kind,” is all he can say. Nehn bunches up one of her sleeves and wipes at her chin with it.

Nehn stares at the mattress. “She was three years older than me. _Stupidly_ tall. All blonde and—disgustingly pretty. I called her a shem and hid behind a cluster of rocks, and we stared at each other from opposite sides of a boulder for, what, maybe a quarter of an hour? I thought she was going to eat me alive. She was my first real friend.”

“'Was?'”

“Was,” she repeats. “I killed her.”

“You— _killed_ her?”

“Maybe not in the way you think,” Nehn says at his wince. “Frida and her parents were living in the nearby village. They were apostates. There were Circles back then. Seems like a lifetime ago. They'd been on the run forever. Had Frida on the road. Both good people. They deserved better. Better than what happened.”

“Was she...?”

“A mage as well? Yes, and talented. A danger to no one. Except maybe honey-cakes.”

He purses his lips. “What... happened?”

“I kept our friendship a secret, of course,” Nehn says lightly. “Nobody in my clan knew. The aravels were ruined. Darkspawn raids every other week—sometimes every other day. Refugees fleeing the civil unrest, flooding the countryside, rushing into the cities, packing into ships—there was nowhere to go. The village didn't mind us, so we stayed. We fought the creatures together. It wasn't exactly sun and roses, but people need each other, much as they hate to admit it, and our combined numbers could protect both the camps and the village. Mutual benefit. The halla were also having a tough year. Not many births. It was... difficult.”

“How long ago was this?”

She considers that for a bit. “It must be... it'll be twenty years this Justinian. Shit. I feel old.”

He was barely a templar initiate twenty years ago. It's a strange idea to dwell on.

“I'm delaying,” she says, rubbing her eyes. “We stayed in the area for a while—longer than we usually did anywhere else. It suited me. Being a hunter and on the run constantly meant that I could see Frida whenever and we spent time doing anything we wanted, nearly every day. I met her parents. They liked me, amazingly.”

Cullen swipes his thumb over her knuckles. “You don't have to talk about this if it's difficult.”

“Yes, I do,” she says in protest. “You _have_ to know. We found a baby bird on the ground sometime during the summer. It was such a tiny, pathetic little thing. Featherless and blind and... pitiful. Frida couldn't climb trees, so I lifted it and hiked to the nest. The way up was fine. On the way down, though—I stepped on a branch I'd avoided. It broke. I fell. Hard.”

“You were hurt.”

She nods. “Badly. I remember... landing on my back, and then I felt warm all over, like I'd just been put in a hot bath. Everything was spinning. Frida was shouting, panicked. She always worried too much. And then she said she'd—” Nehn chokes, the tears overwhelming her “—that she'd fix it, and that I'd be alright. She used to summon spirits. Her mother said she was a medium. Like Solas, but—less proficient.”

He feels her shiver. “...What happened?”

“She promised to call a friend that would make me better. I don't—there's not much after that. I just... passed in and out. Her parents were there the second time I woke up. It was getting dark. Someone had put a cloak over my feet. Scratchy. Something was there, all the time, safe, holding me... helping me.”

“It was a spirit,” Cullen remarks, only realizing just how very obvious that sounded after he says it. “There were such healers in the Fereldan Circle. One of them actually went on to become part of the company that helped the Warden slay the Archdemon.”

“That's nice,” Nehn says unhappily, that being so unlike her normal tone. She bites at edge of her mouth, worrying it with force that could draw blood. “I woke up again, later. In _camp_. Alone. I didn't learn what had happened until the Keeper explained it to me,” she mutters. “It'd been too much for her—too much, too soon. The force of the enchantment she'd used had drained her—and she died.” She bites her lip, hard. "The hunters came looking for me and brought me back. They drove off her parents. I never spoke to them again. I should have known better."

“Stop,” he says. “You couldn't have predicted what would transpire.”

“That's not good enough—”

He strengthens his grip, the more to make his point with. “You were a child. You weren't _supposed_ to have done something. The responsibility lay with your clansmen—but people often don't think before they strike, though that doesn't excuse them. That commitment was not yours to bear. It is they who failed you, not the other way around.”

That stops her cold. Her eyes widen as she stares at their entwined hands. His voice loses its determined edge when he speaks again.

He inhales, trying to piece the words he needs in an order that will make sense. “I know this brand of guilt well. You tell yourself that if it had somehow been different, it could all have been undone, or even halted from ever beginning in the first place. I've learned that the doubt is more poison than duty. I gave into fear and anger, and it nearly cost me my life. You cannot know what _could_ have happened if you'd not done what you did. You never will—and that's alright.”

A curl of hair falls from behind her ear to hang free, its end brushing at the top of her knee.

“I realize that none of what I say can completely erase the grief of what you experienced,” he adds as an afterthought. “However, it is my hope that—just as you've... offered your aid to me, I might do the same. I can't take on this burden for you, but—I can share it. If you'll allow me to.”

Her bottom lip quavers. She's attempting to retain her composure. When it finally breaks, she sobs, her brow pressing to the sweep of his collarbone. He moves his free hand to her shoulder, and then upward, threading his fingers through the feathery, downy fuzz at the top of her nape. A wet spot grows on his shirt as she cries, and he doesn't mind. She's taken great pains to avoid emotional displays around anyone. He is awkward, yes, and shy, and everything else Varric accuses him of being, but he is also perceptive—and she... she doesn't want an audience for her moments of uncertainty, of weakness, of fickleness, and she's displaying it all in his presence.

She _trusts_ him, and he loves her for it. He's loved her for a long time, for many reasons, some easily definable, others not so, and this is just one more. He wonders if he'll ever be able to admit that aloud.

“I'm sorry,” she hiccups through the crying. The sound of it tears at him.

He hushes her. “Don't worry.”

“Your shirt...”

“I have others.”

He can feel the galloping rhythm of her heart through the touch of his elbow at her spine. She still doesn't look at him. “I understand if this makes you want to—if you'll need to...”

Her hair smells of rosemary and sandalwood when he kisses the crown of her head. “This hasn't changed anything.”

The hands at his back ball into fists. “...Will you stay?”

“Always.”

 

 

 

…

 

 

 

The tavern in Skyhold is not usually Dorian's choice of haunt, but he's feeling adventurous tonight (that's translated as _I would like to drink myself into a stupor_ , for those less intellectually inclined). He's sure the Inquisitor will have some recommendations about what will most effectively kick him into that wonderful place between total inebriation and halfway-cohesion. It's his favorite way to be. No one can tell if you're sober or not. Keeps them on their toes.

He finds her sitting by the rail on the much-abandoned second floor, legs splayed and uncrossed, looking very non-Inquisitorious.

“What will it do to morale for the men to see you like this?” he asks as he pulls a chair up for himself.

“They'll drink more and forget,” she grouses, brow furrowing. “I'm setting a prime example of how to do so thus far. Observe, my friend.” She takes a long draught from her pint.

“Lovely,” he says though his nose wrinkles. “Not very jolly tonight, are we?”

She blows a stream of air out of her mouth that sounds more like flatulence than a sigh. He suspects that's what she was aiming for. “If 'jolly' is anything _other_ that 'I want to kill everything that moves,' then no.”

“Ah.”

“How are you doing?”

“How am _I_ doing? I thought I'd ask you how _you_ were doing.”

“Well, you didn't, so I'm asking _you_ how you're doing.”

“That's very nice of you. So should I ask my question first before replying or shall I go?”

“Just answer the fucking question, Dorian.”

“Testy, testy,” he berates her, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. “I'm doing just fine.”

“Even after watching me plow through Venatori ranks?”

“Especially after watching you plow through Venatori ranks.”

She knocks her forehead against the table. _Thunk_.

“That can't be healthy,” Dorian says. She groans. It may have been a sentence in another life, but it isn't one now.

Her expression—what he can see of it while she has her face mashed up to the wood of the table, anyway—becomes apologetic. “I don't want to snap at you. You should go.”

“Too late for that, I'm afraid. It's alright. Nothing I'm not used to.”

Another groan. “You have this talent of always saying exactly what's needed to maximize any residual feelings of guilt. Or regret. Or both.”

He chuckles, despite knowing he probably shouldn't. “You're surprisingly articulate for a drunk woman.”

“I _wish_ I were drunk,” she says despairingly. “I haven't been drunk in years. Nothing hits the spot anymore.”

“You're frightening, you know that?”

“I get that a lot. Don't you?”

Dorian thinks about it, and then shrugs. “Not really, no. It's mostly compliments. Sometimes, 'you, Tevinter!' The blacksmith does like that one.”

She grunts in agreement. “Harritt's a good man, but he's got a stick the length of Andruil's spear up his ass.”

“I'll just nod and smile and pretend I understood that reference.”

“You uncivilized shem,” she says with no venom in her voice.

“Trite, coming from a faithless heathen.”

They both laugh at that, loudly, and the Inquisitor sits up a little.

“There we go,” he says. “A smile at last. Not so hard, was it?”

Nehn sighs, picking at the steel rings on her pint with short-nailed fingers. “Don't you... I don't know, want to be _away_ from the mood-killing barbarian?”

“I'm a big boy,” Dorian counters. “I'd leave if I wished to. Besides, I came here with a goal, and I won't go until it's seen to.”

She blinks at him, big green eyes inquisitive—ha, _inquisitive—_ and she frowns. “Take it easy, alright? You don't have my tolerance.”

He smiles wryly at her. “Yes, Mother, thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“What, no attempt to talk me out of it? I'm disappointed.”

Nehn raps the table with her knuckles. “Would you listen if I tried?”

“Probably not, no.”

“Then there you have it.”

“You're an enabler,” he accuses, but not particularly accusatorily. Probably not the best example of an accusation, to be honest. 

“No,” Nehn says. “I'm more of an 'I'll drag you back to the library and make sure you don't hit your head on a cobblestone'-er.”

“...So, a manservant.”

She scowls. “But that sounds stale and stuffy. Your nobleman is showing. Shame on you, ser.”

“I'll recover from the humiliation in time, I'm sure,” Dorian replies.

Nehn pauses. “Dorian?”

“That's my name, yes.”

“What would you do if... if there was a person you couldn't—joke around? A person you couldn't... lie to? At _all_?”

He looks at her. The way he's going to answer this will most likely clue her in to just how well he could answer this if he even did endeavor to do it seriously (a hint: not very well, in fact, abysmally), and he finds he doesn't really care. It's not easy to confide you don't _know_ things to other people—he wouldn't do that aloud, not now, possibly not ever—but this is the first time that the idea of letting someone catch on about as much doesn't bother him. He supposes that he now knows what it's like to have a friend, and _has_ known for a while. He rather enjoys it.

“Die, probably,” he says, and it's every bit as flippant as he hoped it'd be.

Nehn mulls on that for a moment before she firmly kicks his leg under the table. He winces.

“Your methods of showing affection are remarkably primitive, but somehow endearing.”

“That's me,” she states, nodding. “Lovable and full of squish.”

He grins, this time genuine, no mockery, no smirk, no hurt. Only truth. “We would have you no other way.”

 

 

…

 

 

 

She's been reading this page in this book for the last fifteen minutes. Her eyes scan the lines, over and over again, but nothing is sticking. The words on the paper seem more like nonsensical squiggles of ink than they do writing. By all rights, she should be enjoying this... and yet she isn't. She's in her favorite spot—sitting on the armchair across Cullen's desk, book open on her lap, basking in the sunlight, but it doesn't feel right.

There's a rustle of parchment as Cullen pushes aside a bunch of itineraries. “Something is bothering you.”

Nehn sniffs. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you're _quiet_.”

Her eyes boggle at him. “I can be quiet!” she exclaims, and then catches the humor in his expression. “Alright, point proven. No need to be smug about it. Git.”

He laughs that dumb soft laugh of his that turns her insides to an embarrassing soup of mush. “So? What is it that's worrying you?”

She exhales, shutting the book. “May as well. You won't leave me alone if I don't tell you.”

“You know me, ever determined,” he says, ever so slightly teasing.

Nehn stretches her legs. Where should she start?

“I'm sure you heard about the scroll we returned to Keeper Hawen's clan.”

He frowns. “I know _of_ it, yes, but not much of the specifics.”

“It... detailed the beginning of the Exalted March on the Dales. How it happened. Not everything, but enough of it.”

Pure shock takes over his expression. “That knowledge could put to rest a thousand years' worth of hearsay. Disputes! Feuds—misunderstandings...”

She can't stop a giggle from escaping. “You really _are_ a romantic.”

“I'm—a what?”

“A romantic,” she repeats without trouble. “Both you and Cassandra are softies under all that prickly armor. Do you truly think anyone in the Chantry as it is now would ever let that scroll see the light of day if they got their hands on it?”

He thinks about it, and the conclusion he draws makes him sigh. “I... suppose not.”

“The clan was happy to have it. It gave them some peace.”

“You're avoiding my initial question.”

“I'm getting to it,” she says, wringing her hands. “The whole thing—the razing of Halamshiral, the deaths, the destruction, the occupations in Orlais, the _war—_ it was because of some stupid miscommunication and lovers' secrets. The Knight whose tomb we went to, he... he loved a human woman. He was ready to convert, or to swear he had, for her. To live inside the walls of a human town because he knew it would mean spending the rest of their lives together.”

“Oh.”

She smiles, but it's more bitter than happy. “Not what you were expecting, right? His family followed him to the settlement one night, and she rushed out to meet them. They thought she was armed, and... you can guess how that went.”

Cullen scratches at one cheek more out of nervous habit than an actual need to relieve an itch. “No unspeakable sins and deeds of unforgivable heresy? I should have known.”

“I'm certain those happened, later,” Nehn assures him. “But it started with a moment of misjudgment. When the townspeople found Elandrin cradling Adalene, they thought he was at fault and killed him, and then... the truth was lost. Just like the Dales.”

He looks at her with more compassion than she's worthy of. How could the Keeper say humans would never understand? How could any of them say that? He's real, and he's here, and so is Cassandra, and Dorian, and Leliana—and they all understand, every last one of them, even though they believe, and even though their creeds tell them that the People are beneath their estimation. They understand and they _defer_ to her. Cassandra trusts her. _They_ trust her. There have been and always will be the fools and the wrongdoers and the opportunists, but those kinds of people aren't defined or identified by the shape of their ears or the size of their eyes or where they come from.

She gets up and sets the book on the seat she leaves behind, and then makes her way to the desk. She leans on its edge and gazes out through the narrow window to the courtyard below.

“As it stands, we could start an Exalted March,” she says, and in her opinion, the joke falls rather flat. Cullen swivels in his chair to face her. Their knees brush.

“What do you mean?”

Nehn traces senseless shapes in the wood of the desk with two trailing fingers. “My entire life growing up, I was told that all that could come of dealings with humans was blood and _hate_. I've had proof of it. I've killed so many slavers I've lost count, and fought even more. The Free Marches are rife with them. If they can't get cargo from the cities they turn their attentions to the wild. No one will miss a couple of Dalish. Point is, everyone _ever_ has looked at me... ears first. The rest later. You—didn't.”

He coughs, clearing his throat. “I try. I've mentioned to you before that in the Circles I've served, race—was never much of an issue. What matters inside the Circle is whether you can throw fire or not. Mattered, more accurately.”

“Sadly, becoming a reaver does not give you the ability to breathe fire, so that's one thing you won't have to worry about coming from me. Unless I chuck a brazier at you. Then, you may have to duck.”

“Let's hope I don't give you reason to.”

She smiles again, looking at him, at his silly adorable nose and the scar on his lip and the earnest eyes, the ringlets of his hair, and the honesty of the character in his countenance. She's turned into a sap. _He's_ turned her into a sap.

“I meant it,” she says, drawing his attention. “A lot of people on both sides would take that scroll as evidence of the fact that the worlds of humans and elves shouldn't mix. You could have been one of them, but you aren't. I don't think you know just how special that is.”

“No one should be commended for basic, common decency,” he objects.

“My dear man, when has decency ever been _common_?”

He shakes his head. “It's supposed to be.”

“Mm, there we have it,” Nehn continues. “But it isn't. So accept the compliment, you laggard.”

Cullen laughs, the second time she's caused it. “Yes, my lady Inquisitor. I shall.”

She turns until the tip of her boot is poking his shin and he's close enough to touch. “I'd never leave you because of what anyone said, elf or not.”

He smiles too, soft and grateful. “Nor would I.”

“Good,” she reaffirms, “because you'd be stuck with me for a long time either way. Actually...”

“Actually...?”

“Let's make some hundred-years-dead official turn over in their graves,” she says simply, and then pushes herself off the edge of the desk to plop herself squarely on his lap. His responding splutter is magnificent, but it's drowned out by the kiss she presses to his mouth. She runs both hands through his hair—she's been wanting to do that all afternoon, really—and she's pleased to report that when she draws back he is thoroughly distracted and very, very red.

“What are you doing?” he asks in a hoarse voice, and she leans in again.

“ _Mixing_.” 

 


End file.
